Jon Avnet’s 1991 Fried Green Tomatoes is a heartwarming story of love, friendship and self-discovery. The parallel running plots told by Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) and Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy) serve a hilarious contrast between the timid housewife and the witty widow as the characters form an unusual friendship. The story Ninny tells about Idgie making her way in the world teaches Evelyn about self-confidence and determination, and the importance of intimate friendships. Rather than absorbing the emotional impact of Ninny’s story, Evelyn amplifies – to the audience – the memories that Ninny shares through the narrative’s ‘story-within-a-story’ structure. At least, the first time I saw it, I could not stop sobbing. Evelyn serves to act on the story’s affective force, enacting’s it’s ultimate lessons and giving Ninny the opportunity to exact a final impact on the world as she leaves it. Evelyn gives weight to Ninny’s words in the way that we wish we could.
Coming from a place of wild, unspent grief, Idgie’s friendship with Ruth has a begrudging start, but it is the kind and gentle spirit that Ruth embodies that teaches Idgie to forgive the world for the death of her brother. The balance that they strike between untamed and loving manifests a relationship in which they continue to save each other time and again: Ruth’s intervention in Idgie’s reckless grief spiral, countered by Idgie’s intervention in Ruth’s abusive marriage and so on and so forth. This, set against the background of Alabama in the 30s – which would have seen women in conventional marriages by the time they were 20 – produces a charming display of overcoming odds and carving one’s own path in life.
It is this takeaway that has Evelyn (and myself) in tears before the end of Ninny’s tale. As I watched Idgie sit by Ruth’s sickbed, I found myself in deep appreciation for my own girl-friendships, and for the level of mutual understanding and respect that they exact on the soul as a result of common vulnerability and kindness. It is that fierce loyalty and boundless love between women that I felt was captured exceptionally in Idgie and Ruth’s friendship. The strength and bravery that they inspired in one another consequently inspires Evelyn to reclaim control over her life, an observable courage that seems to transcend generations.
Even the moments when the narrative reminds us that the odds are stacked against these young girls, the point that the story always seems to come back to is that their wit and their love for their friends makes them as rich as they could ever hope to be.
*cut back to me sobbing*
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